


Hunter's Trap

by ElektricAngel



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon), RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe, Castlevania AU, Crossover, M/M, Magic, Multi, One Shot, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:48:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24761089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElektricAngel/pseuds/ElektricAngel
Summary: Beneath the blood-soaked streets of Gresit, something sleeps. Some versions of the myth say it’s a monster, others, a savior. But all of the stories agree: it is fated to be awoken by a hunter and a thief.
Relationships: Cloqwork Orange, Qrow Branwen/Ozpin/Roman Torchwick
Comments: 11
Kudos: 46





	Hunter's Trap

Qrow wrenched his scythe from where he’d embedded it in the great cyclops’ eye, and swung the weapon out to the side, letting the black blood and viscera coating the sacred silver blade spatter against the stone wall of the ancient catacombs he'd found himself in. It was just his luck, that right in the heat of battle, when his leadership and his lethal knowledge of all the things that go bump in the night had allowed him and the surviving citizens of Gresit to turn the tide against the infernal creatures of Grimm roving rampant through the city, that the old cobblestones in the central square had given way beneath his feet and sent him tumbling down into this abyss. Where he was promptly greeted by the nasty glare of a cyclops that did not take kindly to unexpected visitors dropping in. 

What had looked like a sculpture gallery was really a graveyard of living tombstones. For while Qrow was certainly the last visitor the cyclops would ever entertain, he had clearly not been the first. Unfortunately, it looked as though none of the people who’d been caught in the creature's petrifying gaze had survived the years in tact. As the last twitches of life left the beast’s cooling body, the stone statues about the room began to crumble into sickening slop piles of blood and meat. 

However, a gasp turned Qrow’s head in time to see that one of the petrified people had indeed survived. He rushed to catch the figure as it toppled over, so the poor sod didn't break something important before being fully revived. With Qrow's catlike reflexes, he slid across the smooth flagstones on his knees and caught the cyclops' victim less than a foot from the floor. As chips of stone crumbled away from skin and clothing, a man came to life in Qrow's arms, hair the color of flames and dressed in white robes. He looked up at Qrow in bewilderment, and then abruptly shoved away and fell to his hands and knees, emptying onto the floor whatever the contents of his stomach had been at the time he’d been caught in the cyclops’ gaze. 

Qrow gave him a pat on the back, the hunter’s dark cloak pooling around him like a shadow. “The aftereffects of the cyclops’ spell should wear off in a few minutes,” he said. The man glared up at him blearily from under his hood and then another wave of nausea overwhelmed him and he spat more bile onto the grimy flagstones. His movements were shaky, but not stiff. He was a fairly recent victim, then. 

When he was finished, Qrow offered the man his flask, which he took without question and raised to his lips. The billowing sleeves of his robes slid back to show off his peculiar thick, black leather gloves that rose up his arms nearly to the elbows. He swished the harsh, amber liquid around his mouth and then spat it out in distaste. “What is that swill?” he asked. 

Qrow took the flask back from him and capped it shut, tucking it back beneath his cloak. “The finest whiskey the last tavern in Gresit that isn’t a smoking pile of rubble had to offer,” Qrow answered. 

“It’s gotten that bad up there, huh?” the man asked, gazing up into the shadows of the cavernous ceiling.

“Hell on Earth,” Qrow said without exaggeration. Just as she had promised. “How did you get down here?” he asked, eyes casting around for an exit of some kind. 

The man looked back over his shoulder at the mountainous pile of rubble Qrow had brought down with him. “I think your way in destroyed my way in.” 

Well, that figured. There was almost never an easy option, in Qrow’s experience. The only remaining entrance to the subterranean stone hall was a great archway at the far end, with steps that clearly led _down_ , further into the dark. Although, it wasn’t as dark as it should have been, with the strange glass torches ringing the walls, which weren’t really torches at all. Their light was harsh and brighter than any fire on Earth, and Qrow knew of just one other place where his ancestors had encountered such strange devices. It was enough to make the hair stand on the back of the hunter’s neck, and set his teeth on edge. 

He offered a hand to the stranger and helped him to his feet. The man brushed lingering stone dust from his robes and hair, quickly regaining his poise and taking stock of his surroundings with a calculating glint in his vivid green eye. The other eye was obscured by his bangs, which swept across the right half of his face in a very unusual haircut. It seemed frustratingly impractical. If the cyclops had approached from his right, the man had probably never even seen it coming. 

“Those look like Speakers’ robes,” Qrow commented, indicating the man’s attire. “But the color’s wrong.” Speakers wore blue, not white.

“I lead a group of apostate Speakers,” the man said casually. His attention was captured by the unnatural light sources as well, and he began to clamber up the pile of rubble toward one as he spoke. “We don’t bother trying to help people who’ve made it clear they don’t want our help. Instead, we help ourselves.” The Speakers had had it almost as bad as Qrow’s family had, as the Church had tightened its grip on the masses, and proclaimed anyone who had dealings with what they deemed the dark elements of the supernatural to be heretics and devil-worshippers. Ironically, when the time came that the good Christians of Walachia actually needed knowledge of the threats they thought the light of their God had banished to the shadows, they had already excommunicated and persecuted to near extinction the one family in the region who had bred and trained generations with the sole purpose of slaying such monsters. Qrow’s family.

“That looks like the Branwen crest,” said the ex-Speaker from his precarious perch atop the rubble, referring to Qrow’s own tunic, where the wings of his family crest were emblazoned in gold over the breast. The man must have caught a glimpse of it when Qrow had pulled his cloak back to tuck his flask away. He was more observant than Qrow had given him credit for. “I didn’t think there were any of you left. But I should’ve known. The eerie red eyes are a dead giveaway. Is is true that the Branwens bred with monsters generations back to enhance their progeny’s abilities?” 

Qrow didn’t dignify the ridiculous yet irritatingly widespread rumor with a response. The man didn’t really seem to expect one as he examined the torch’s fixture, and then, cautiously, he reached out and touched the glass. If it was hot, it wasn’t hot enough to burn through his gloves, because after a second he tightened his grip and began to twist the light-filled glass loose until it came free of its fixture and went dark in his hand. “Hm,” the man grumbled, giving it a shake. Then he shrugged, and tucked the strange device away within his robes and leapt down deftly. 

He sneered at the felled cyclops as he walked past it to return to Qrow’s side. “Well, I’d rather be stuck down here with a skilled hunter than a lucky drunk,” he said. “So, Branwen, what do you figure is our best way out of this?”

“There’s only one way out,” said Qrow, gesturing with a flash of the red lining of his cloak and a flourish of his scythe to the stairs leading deeper into the catacombs. 

The man grimaced. “I was afraid you’d say that.” 

†††

Qrow had been traveling alone for so long that he was perfectly content to continue onward in silence. But his companion, not so much. “Which Branwen are you, then?” the man asked. 

Qrow didn’t generally introduce himself anymore, not since everything and everyone bearing the Branwen crest had been burnt to ash, but the man already knew he was a Branwen, and he hadn’t crossed himself and run, or tried to set Qrow ablaze. Qrow figured his Christian name didn’t much matter. “I’m Qrow.” 

The man chuckled under his breath. “Oh, I’ve heard stories about you.”

“You’re a Speaker,” Qrow grumbled. “You know stories about everyone. Some would say the Speakers are nothing more than a gaggle of glorified gossips.” 

“Speakers only tell stories about the people worth telling stories about,” the man corrected. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Qrow. I’m Roman Torchwick.” 

“I didn’t ask,” Qrow huffed. Then he tripped over an uneven step and swore, barely catching himself by slamming a hand to the wall before he would’ve pitched forward headfirst down this dizzyingly endless spiral staircase that seemed to plunge to the depths of Hell itself. The unnatural lights were becoming fewer and further between the deeper they descended, and it was getting dark indeed. 

Roman clicked his tongue and ducked under Qrow’s outstretched arm, taking the lead. Then, with a flourish of his fingers, an orange flame leapt to life in his hand, illuminating the narrow passage around them. 

Qrow stared speechless at the flickering flame for a few seconds before growling, “How come you didn’t do that earlier?”

“You didn’t ask,” said Roman snidely, before he continued the descent. Qrow was forced to follow close at his heels to keep within the soft glow of the fire. 

“So you’re a Speaker-Magician,” he surmised. 

“I study pyromancy,” Roman specified. 

That explained the gloves, then. Those who played with fire could still get burned. Qrow suddenly suspected that Roman had learned that lesson the hard way. Sometimes, when the man turned his head a certain way, Qrow caught a glimpse of severe scarring behind the hair hiding half his face. Qrow now realized that it looked a lot like a burn. 

Roman stopped on the stairs for no apparent reason, and Qrow nearly walked into him with a startled grunt. Qrow was about to curse at him when the man pulled a dagger from somewhere within the folds of his robes, setting the hunter on high alert. Qrow gripped his scythe at his back, but then Roman used the dagger to prise a shiny sigil of some sort from where it was embedded in the stone wall, and then both the trinket and the dagger disappeared into the man’s robes. 

Qrow let out a tense breath. “Are you going to keep doing that?”

“Speaker stories say this place houses unusual treasures. It’s the reason I came down here,” said Roman as he pressed onward. 

“So you use your people’s stories simply to seek out valuable artefacts,” said Qrow. “You’re little more than a petty thief.” 

“I prefer the term ‘reclamation artist’,” said Roman. “And there is nothing _petty_ about the items I salvage.” 

“I was referring more to your personality.”

Roman rounded on him, and Qrow was suddenly faced with fire an inch from his nose. “Petty enough to incinerate you for your little insult, would you say?”

Qrow stared at the other man through the flame. “I suppose that depends on how confident you are that you won’t run into another cyclops down here,” he said. “Or something worse.” 

Roman set his jaw and turned his back to Qrow once more to continue the drudging descent. They were partners of circumstance, but they both knew that their odds were better together than alone. Each step carried them deeper into the unknown, and Qrow was already uncertain how far he had fallen to begin with. These endlessly spiraling stairs were beginning to wear on his nerves. It didn’t help that he was still quite drunk from his visit to the tavern. His head was starting to spin. 

Just when Qrow thought he was about to lose his lunch like the hot-tempered pyromancer had, the spiral staircase mercifully let out into an enormous chamber, the bounds of which Qrow could not determine, since the shadows encroached closer than the walls, ceiling or floor. Ahead of them was a narrow stone bridge over the yawning chasm below—the only apparent means of traversing the chamber. They would have to cross in single-file. 

Roman’s attention was immediately captured by the intricate pair of little statuettes poised atop the two short, stone pedestals flanking either side of the bridge. They were snarling wolves, carved from what might very well have been emerald. The thief swiftly set upon the nearest one and deftly carved away the mortar anchoring it to its pedestal with his dagger and ferreted the statuette away within his robes. 

When he was finished, he seemed surprised that Qrow was still standing there, waiting on him. “Age before beauty,” he said, giving a sweeping gesture toward the bridge. 

Qrow sighed, and led the way across. He doubted he was _that_ much older than the other man, although the life of a hunter had certainly taken its toll on him. He ran a hand over the stubble down his jaw that was getting a little too long to be 'ruggedly handsome' and verging on 'vagrant woodsman.' He should probably shave again soon.  
  
They made it what Qrow figured must have been about midway across the narrow bridge when the hunter stepped on another stone that slid down under his weight. “Shit, not again!” he cursed, leaping forward, but it was too late. The entire midsection of the bridge was giving way beneath them, and then they were falling through the darkness. There were flashes of light as Roman tried to right himself as he tumbled through the air by shooting powerful jets of fire from his hands, and Qrow caught glimpses of massive, metal gears grinding below them like colossal clockwork wrought to measure millennia.

Qrow pulled his scythe from his back and, as the grinding gears rushed up to meet him, he hooked the curved blade around one of the cogs, and swung up onto the metal structure, riding it down as it turned, until he was forced to leap to the next. In three swings, he was dropping to the floor, cloak flaring out around him like wings. Roman landed lightly on his feet beside Qrow a moment later, extinguishing his flames in his fists. 

“You just attract disaster, don’t you?” said Roman, smoothing out his robes. 

“Maybe I’m attracted _to_ disaster,” Qrow muttered, eyes flicking around the shadows of the new location. There were more unnatural torches down here, illuminating a single path ahead. No way out but forward. Just like a trap. 

“Maybe you _are_ a disaster,” said Roman, twisting his knife to loosen the screws of one of the little gears down at eye level, before pulling the whole thing free of the great mechanical contraption. With a _click_ , the next largest gear came to a halt. Another, slightly larger gear ground to a standstill with a metallic _clank_. Then another, larger one, and still another, larger than that. A hiss began to emanate from the walls, softly at first, but quickly rising to a fever pitch as scalding steam burst forth from a network of pipes, and the glass torches began to flicker. 

Roman tucked the gear away with a stricken expression. Behind him, metal shrieked and groaned, and one of the colossal gears crashed to the ground on its end. But instead of toppling over, it gradually began to roll forward. 

Qrow stared up at it with wide eyes. “ _Run!”_

The two men took off at a sprint toward the archway illuminated up ahead as the gear slowly picked up speed behind them. But a massive object like that didn’t need to move _fast_ to move _far_ , and it was going to outpace them _soon_. The exit was too far away. They weren’t going to make it. Qrow Branwen, feared monster hunter and the last heir to the Branwen legacy, was going to meet his end not by the jaws of a creature of night or the claws of an infernal creature of Grimm, but crushed under a lifeless hunk of metal miles beneath a dying city, alongside a petty thief with stupid hair. 

There was a roar of flames behind him, almost an explosion, and then another body slammed into his and sent him soaring through the air at breakneck speed and tumbling through the stone archway into the next chamber before he knew what had hit him. As Qrow attempted to catch his stolen breath and push himself up from the floor, Roman skidded to a halt beside him, the hem of his robes still smoldering from the blast. 

They both looked up as the gear rolled toward them, inevitable in its approach. But unlike the floors in this godforsaken deathtrap, the walls were solid, sturdy stone, and when the massive metal disc smashed against the archway seconds after they had passed through it, the ground trembled, but the subterranean structure held strong, and the gear finally came to rest—blocking the way they’d come. 

Qrow fixed Roman with a wild-eyed stare. “Stop. _Touching things!_ ”

Roman looked taken aback. “Hey, I just saved your ass! How about a _thank you_?”

“Oh, yeah,” growled Qrow, shoving to his feet, “ _thank you_ for almost getting us both _killed!_ ”

“It’s this _place_ that wants to kill us!” Roman shouted. “I mean, hell, one wrong step and the fucking floor collapses! _Why?_ ”

Qrow advanced a step toward Roman, and then froze. His heart dropped into his stomach as he and Roman both looked down. With a slow, grating sound, the stone beneath Qrow’s foot began to sink. 

They both cursed in unison and leapt back in opposite directions, but this time, nothing happened. They waited with rapid, adrenaline-fueled breaths for everything to come crumbling down around them, but still—nothing. 

Just when they began to recover their composure, however, a quiet grinding of gears resounded throughout the chamber. They both turned toward the source of the sound to see a sleek, black coffin rising from a stone dais at the end of the long hall. 

Qrow hadn’t gotten a good look at the space before, but now a cascade of cold shudders rattled his spine. The unnatural lights, the massive, mechanical workings, the coffin, and behind it, a row of large, glass tanks full of a deep red liquid that Qrow had seen too much of in his life not to recognize instantly—blood. This place was just like that cursed castle that had loomed like a shadow over his ancestors through the ages.

Qrow ran his fingers through the black feathers adorning the shoulders and collar of his cloak until they closed around the metal fastening at his throat. He unlatched it and let the bulky garment billow to the floor around him. Slowly, he reached back over his shoulder and pulled his scythe from its leather harness across his back. “What else do your Speaker stories say about this place?” he asked Roman under his breath.

“I never believed the last part.” Roman swallowed, gaze fixed on the coffin, now still where it had risen. “Something slumbers here,” he whispered. “Some versions of the story say it’s a monster. Others say it’s a savior.”

Qrow turned his scythe in his hands, the silver blade flashing under the strange lights. 

Roman eyed the hunter and his hands twitched, flames beginning to lick up his fingers. 

Then, slowly, gratingly, the coffin lid slid back and fell to the floor with a heavy _thud_.

“Whatever it is,” murmured Qrow, “it’s waking up.”

Amidst the inky shadows within, a pair of unnaturally bright, piercing eyes opened. Then a figure, tall, slender and strikingly pale, rose from its not-so-final resting place and hovered ethereally in the air above the empty coffin, glowing golden eyes framed by feathered silver hair that fell lightly about its frighteningly fair face. It was no man, but it resembled one, clad in dark, form-fitting trousers bound about its waist by a pair of crossing black leather belts. Its lithe torso was bare, and crossed from shoulder to hip by a mottled red scar—the memory of what would have been a mortal wound to any mortal creature. But this creature had an intimate and flexible arrangement with death. Everything, from the claws gleaming at the tips of its fingers, to the pointed ears peeking out from beneath its hair, to those unnatural, hypnotic eyes, told Qrow exactly what this creature was before it even opened its mouth to speak, revealing a pair of long, lethal fangs. 

“Why have you come here?” it inquired in a voice so smooth and gentle it might have surprised Qrow, had he not been well aware that the vampire was often a charming creature—until its fangs were at your throat. 

“I fell down a hole,” Qrow answered tersely, unwilling to make the first move against such a deadly adversary without knowing the creature's intent. 

Roman folded his flaming hands behind his back and snuffed the fire out. “…Me, too.” 

The vampire’s gaze shifted focus to Roman, and a strangely human look of skepticism crossed its face. “Those same stories you speak of say that I am fated to be awoken by a hunter and a thief. I recognize the Branwen crest,” it said, eyes flicking briefly back to Qrow with a flash of something fearsome, but so brief, Qrow would have missed it had he blinked. Then the creature was addressing Roman again. “Are you a thief?”

Roman started to shake his head and opened his mouth to say something that could seal his fate in a second. Qrow knew better than to attempt to lie to a vampire—they could hear the human heartbeat quicken at the slightest deception. So Qrow elbowed Roman sharply in the stomach before he could speak, knocking the breath out of him, and sending all of his hidden treasures clattering to the floor. The glass torch rolled away down the hall toward the vampire, whose eyes tracked it as it came to rest close by its feet. 

“I see,” said the vampire pensively, raising an idle hand to the scar across its chest. Qrow might have suspected that one of his ancestors had been the one to put that scar on the creature, had he not happened to know that in every encounter between a Branwen and a vampire, only one had walked away alive. One, or neither. 

“Why are _you_ here, vampire?” Qrow asked, ignoring Roman’s fiery glare. “What is this place?”

The vampire spread its arms in a sweeping gesture. “I built this keep so that I might rest, recover, and wait. For you, perhaps,” it said, although it sounded far from certain. “My name is Ozpin, son of Ozma.” 

“ _Shit,_ ” Qrow breathed. Ozma, the Vampire King, had reigned over the night from his roving, ever-changing castle for centuries, until a little over a year ago, when Qrow’s father had managed to capture the King on his travels throughout the country, and bring him to face the Archbishop’s divine justice in Targoviste in a desperate bid for the Branwens to be reinstated as members of the Church. But the Archbishop incited the citizens with his dogmatic vitriol, and the mob burnt both Ozma and Qrow’s father at the same stake. And that was when Walachia’s troubles had truly begun. For the King had a Queen, a powerful magician named Salem, as adept at otherworldly arts as her vampire husband. And as soon as she saw what had become of him, she swore vengeance in a fiery apparition in the sky over Walachia that night. She promised that in a year, she would raise a horde of Hell-spawned creatures—the Grimm—to wipe humanity out of Walachia, and then the world, which would be born anew in blood. Targoviste had been the first city to fall to the Grimm a year later, and then, one by one, the others were overrun by the vicious creatures, leaving nothing but death and destruction where civilization once flourished. Gresit was one of the few cities left standing. For now. 

“I’m sensing you two have a history,” Roman muttered to Qrow under his breath. 

“You could say that,” said the vampire. 

“Is that it?” Qrow asked. “You want vengeance, vampire?”

The vampire’s eyes narrowed. “And if I do?”

“Then I hate to break it to you, but I’m the last living heir of House Branwen. The Church saw to that. Either way,” he said, leveling his scythe as he slipped into a fighting stance, “the bad blood between our families will all spill out here.” 

The vampire licked its lips at the mention of blood, and Qrow regretted his poetics. But if that was the last thing he lived to regret, he could make peace with it. He rushed forward and swung his scythe at the vampire, who vanished in a blur of red-tinged shadow, and reappeared behind Qrow the next second, raking its claws across the hunter’s back before he even registered its presence. Qrow cried out in pain, but it spurred him into swift reaction, and he swept around, releasing his silver throwing knives in a deadly arc. He heard the vampire hiss as one of the purified blades grazed its skin, leaving a sizzling gash across its pretty face. Qrow immediately followed the knives with another sweep of his scythe, opening up a fresh laceration criss-crossing the old scar on its chest and sending the vampire crashing to the floor. The creature’s cursed blood hissed and spat where it coated Qrow’s blade.

The vampire’s liquid gold eyes seemed to light at the thrill of a challenge, and it held its hand out, summoning a tall staff crowned with a glistening emerald from the confines of its coffin. It blocked Qrow’s next blow with the staff, and then used the weapon to shove Qrow back with brutal force. Before he could regain his footing, it brought the staff around again with such speed that Qrow didn’t even have time to raise an arm in defense before he took a bash to the side of the head, hard enough to rattle his teeth in his skull. Qrow felt hot blood welling in his mouth and seeping though the hair at his temple from the blow, and more rivulets of the stuff running down his back from where the creature's claws had shredded his skin. He blocked the vampire’s next blow with the shaft of his scythe, and noticed that its golden eyes were now tinged with red as the scent of Qrow’s blood permeated the air. 

Qrow leapt back to a safer striking distance and swung his scythe once more, but the vampire dipped beneath it with preternatural speed and grace, and shoved Qrow back again with its staff, this time hard enough to send the hunter sailing through the air to land roughly on the steps of the dais. In the next instant, the creature was on top of him, pinning him down with unbreakable strength and circling clawed fingers over his jaw, forcing his head back to expose his throat. 

The vampire’s fangs gleamed and its cool breath cloyed at Qrow’s neck as the hunter fought back a full-body tremor. There was something feral in its tone when it spoke, eclipsing its previous smooth refinement. “I could end the Branwen bloodline here and now. I think I would relish the taste of the last drop of Branwen blood on my tongue.” 

Qrow bared a bloody grin as he replied, “My consecrated blade would pierce your heart before your infernal fangs pierced my throat.”

The vampire looked down, as though noticing for the first time the hunter’s silver dagger poised between them, already embedded partway into its flesh, drawing blood that bubbled down the blade and Qrow’s hand onto his tunic. The vampire glanced back up at Qrow’s face with an appraising look. “Are you sure of your aim, hunter?”

“I am.” Roman stood behind the vampire, a fiery inferno caged in his fingers and leveled right at the back of the creature’s head. “But you seem like a man who can be reasoned with, Ozpin,” Roman continued. “I have no quarrel with you, but that asshole happens to be my best ticket out of here. So why don’t we all call it a draw, and he and I will leave you to your beauty sleep?”

The vampire seemed to stare at nothing as it murmured softly, “I’ve slept long enough, I think.” Then, chillingly, it smiled. “So you two are the ones I’ve waited for.” The creature stood, and Roman quickly backed away to keep his distance, still holding his flames trained on its back. But it paid him little mind, instead reaching down to offer a hand to Qrow. 

Bewildered, but sensing that the immediate danger had passed, Qrow reluctantly took the offered hand and allowed the creature to pull him to his feet. “What do you mean, vampire?” Qrow asked warily.

“I told you, my name is Ozpin.” It—he turned his back on the pair of them and walked back to his coffin, reaching inside and pulling out a long, dark green coat trimmed with elegant gold brocade. He glanced back at them over his shoulder as he slipped it on. “And I am no mere vampire.” With a sharp rap of his staff upon the flagstones, the flames in Roman’s fist were extinguished in a puff of emerald smoke. 

“You’re a magician, too,” said Roman, suddenly even more on-edge.

“I possess the gifts of my father and my mother,” said Ozpin, turning to face them once more. “My mother is a master of arcana even older than that which the Speakers study, but 'magician' remains as apt a term for her as it is for you and me. Although after the Church’s dogma took hold of this country, most people simply took to calling her a witch.”

“Yeah, we get that a lot,” Roman admitted. “But what does any of this have to do with the two of us?”

“There is more to the story than you know.”

Roman sighed. “There usually is.”

“It was my father’s dying wish that my mother and I spare humanity our wrath. He had come to love them as he loved my mother, who remains human even now, though her magic sustains her unnaturally long life. There was a time, all but forgotten now, when humanity worshipped Ozma and Salem as benevolent gods. He taught them the ancient sciences that had been lost to history, and she taught them the magic arts, all so that they could better themselves and their circumstances. But with the rise of the Church, his knowledge became heresy, and her skills became witchcraft.” Ozpin fixed Qrow with his unnerving gaze. “He begged as he burned that we would not seek vengeance on them. I have, and will ever honor his final request.” He glanced away again. “But my mother has not, as all of Walachia now knows. I tried to stop her…” He raised a hand to the scar across his chest. “She struck me down.”

“So you slunk down here with your tail between your legs to lick your wounds,” said Qrow coldly. His father’s final act in bringing Ozma to face the Church’s fury may have been questionable, but any Branwen would have fought to the death to prevent the horrors Salem had unleashed upon the people of Walachia for it. 

“I did,” Ozpin admitted. “Time is…flexible. The Speakers know this, that sometimes stories are passed down from the future, as well as the past. I knew that one day, I would be reawakened by a hunter and a thief, and that together, we would have the strength to do what I had failed to do alone—defeat Salem, and put an end to this wretched war on humanity.” 

“Us, defeat Salem?” Roman scoffed. “You ever consider the possibility that the old stories are a crock of horse shit?” 

“You’re here, aren’t you?” said Ozpin flatly. “But if I’m wrong about you, if you are not the ones I’ve awaited, then you may leave this place unhindered, and I will return to my slumber.”

“You seriously think the three of us have a chance?” Qrow asked. 

Ozpin descended the dais to address them eye-to-eye. “I believe we have a destiny.” 

Roman eyed Qrow nervously. “You’re not actually _considering_ forging into this insanity.”

“I’m a Branwen,” Qrow said, never breaking Ozpin’s gaze. “I hunt monsters. It’s in my blood.” 

Ozpin smiled, and then his eyes shifted to Roman. “You know, your stolen treasures will be worthless if there is no one left alive to sell them to.” 

Roman grit his teeth, unable to contend with the dire logic. The world really was going to Hell up there. Soon, there wouldn’t be anything left worth a damn. Just…blood and ruin.“I don’t suppose the stories say anything about our chances of survival?” he finally grit out.

“You know Speakers’ stories,” said Ozpin. “There are conflicting versions.” 

“Fucking hell,” Roman groused. 

Ozpin raised an eyebrow. “Do I have your allegiance?” he asked them. 

“One question,” said Qrow. He gestured broadly at the tanks behind Ozpin’s coffin. “How does a vampire come to acquire _that much_ blood?” He kept his tone light and civil, but beneath it was a bladed threat should the answer displease him. 

“Ah, yes,” Ozpin murmured, glancing over his shoulder at the tanks. “That blood was alchemically produced,” he said. “Sufficient to sustain me while I slept. But lacking the vital properties of the natural substance that I require now that I am awake.” When his eyes met Qrow’s once more, they had again taken on that dangerous red tint. 

Qrow recalled that he was still bleeding from their fight, and took a step back, holding out his arm to encourage Roman to do the same. “All that time asleep without a proper meal,” he said as he slowly backed away. “You must be hungry.” 

Ozpin prowled softly forward, putting the hunter in mind of a wolf stalking its prey. “Starving, actually.” 

Qrow tightened his grip around the shaft of his scythe. “As loathe as I am to admit it, you got me to drop my guard, vampire. You had plenty of opportunity. If you wanted my blood so badly, why didn’t you just take it?”

Ozpin stopped in his tracks, raising a hand to his mouth to cover his fangs, which had been on full display. “I’m not a monster,” he said softly, as though reminding himself of it. “But I must recover my strength if we are to have a hope of success.” He swallowed thickly. “With your permission, I…” He trailed off at the look on Qrow’s face.

“No encounter between your bloodline and mine has been anything but deadly,” said Qrow.

“And yet, you would fight alongside me with all your might,” said Ozpin. “I only wish to be able to do the same.” 

The cold realization set in that Ozpin was right. Although he was still leagues beyond the common vampires Qrow had encountered in his colorful career, and more than a match for Qrow himself, he was obviously weakened from his wound and his subsequent malnourishment, too pale and deathly even for a vampire. Qrow could only imagine what he was capable of when he fed properly, and even then, it had not been enough to outmatch his mother. He wouldn’t stand a chance against her as he was now, which didn't bode well for the rest of them. But Qrow wasn’t willing to turn the vampire loose on innocent civilians and betray everything his family stood for. The thief, maybe. If Ozpin wanted seconds. 

Qrow growled, shoving his free hand through his messy hair. He couldn't believe what he was about to agree to. “Then you won’t mind swallowing my blood with my knife at your throat.” 

A small smile tugged at Ozpin’s lips, showing just a hint of his teeth. “If that would make you more comfortable.”

†††

Roman kept backing away as the vampire closed in on Qrow. But he couldn’t tear his eyes away as the hunter raised his blade to the beast’s throat, and the other hunter, for that was every bit of what a vampire was, raised his hands to cradle Qrow's face in a dangerous mimicry of tenderness. Despite the silver sizzling at his own throat, Ozpin ever so gently tilted Qrow's chin up with two fingers—and then sank his fangs into the flesh of his willing prey. 

Qrow groaned once in discomfort, but it was not long until he began to utter considerably less displeased sounds as the vampire suckled at his neck. After a little while, he went boneless in Ozpin’s embrace, and his dagger and scythe slipped from his hands and clattered across the flagstones. Ozpin delicately lowered the half-conscious hunter to the floor amongst his weapons. "Your bloodline will not end here, Branwen," he murmured. "I promise you that. But you do need to rest now." Then he looked up at Roman with eyes that had turned as red as his bloodstained lips. 

“And you, thief?” he inquired, rising slowly and licking Qrow’s blood from his fangs. “Would it not be a fair trade to offer your blood in exchange for the treasures you’ve taken from my keep?”

Roman froze, trying and failing to spark flames at his fingertips under the vampire’s paralyzing stare. It was like being caught and turned to stone in the cyclops' gaze all over again. “If we make a fair trade, then I won’t be a thief anymore, will I?” said Roman. “I don’t know what that would mean for your precious prophecy, but it’s…food for thought,” he finished weakly.

Ozpin frowned and his eyes seemed to lose their focus on the other man. When he stepped forward, he faltered. He raised a hand to his lips again, and looked down at the hunter sprawled at his feet. “Isss he drunk?” the vampire slurred on a hiss. 

Qrow chuckled deliriously. “‘Course ‘m drunk, you’ve drunk me.” 

“Lord, he _isss_. How wasss he even _ssstanding_ , let alone, _fighting_?” Ozpin was starting to slur his words worse than a person normally would when mired in drink, his tongue catching and tripping up behind his fangs. He swayed slightly on his feet. “Urgh. I need to…” He dropped lightly but gracelessly to his hands and knees, his staff rolling away from him across the flagstones. For a moment, he looked as though he wasn’t sure about keeping all that blood down, his claws digging deep scratches into the stone as his hands clenched into fists. But then his entire form was shuddering, shifting, and in his place, a white wolf stood, its thick fur bristling as it growled softly with unease. 

Roman took another step back, but without sparing the men a second glance, the wolf turned tail and loped up the steps of the dais, nearly losing its footing on the penultimate step, claws struggling to gain purchase on the smooth stone. But it made it to the top, and soon it was scrambling up into the open coffin and curling up inside with its face buried under its fluffy tail. Other than occasional, quiet growls, it gave no further signs of stirring. 

“I think you vanquished the big, bad vampire, after all,” Roman remarked, looking down at Qrow. 

“Tha’ was m’plan all along,” the hunter slurred, whether from blood loss, or the alcohol finally catching up to him as well after the adrenaline had worn off, or most likely, a combination of both. 

“Sure, Branwen.” He thought about trying to help the hunter to his feet, but the man looked heavy and uncooperative, and quite content to curl up on the hard, stone floor to sleep off his stupor. “You’re still going to help him, though, aren’t you?”

“‘F’course,” Qrow murmured sleepily into the crook of his arm. “Aren’t you?” 

Roman got the sinking feeling that he would. Speaker prophecies were irksome that way. But at the very least, he wouldn’t do it for free. He listened to the soft snores of hunter and wolf as they began to doze, and then he set about searching the great hall for spoils. 

**Author's Note:**

> I always envisioned this fic as a one-shot and I don't currently have plans to continue this AU, but if you're curious to know where I imagine things going from here, I'm pasting my outline below. Anyone is welcome to continue/contribute to this AU however you'd like, but these are my ideas, and they're all fair game if anyone wants to keep this going (just let me know and I'll point readers your way!):
> 
> The story would loosely follow the plot of Castlevania S2 with a slow-burn romance between the main trio. The boys would head to the Branwen hold next, where Qrow would uncover his family’s sacred silver scythe, The Grimm Reaper, and Roman and Ozpin would work together to summon and lock down Ozma’s castle through the distance mirror.
> 
> Meanwhile, Salem’s court has fractured. She recruited Forgemasters Hazel and Adam to raise her Grimm army, and summoned Ozma’s old vampire generals Goodwitch, Ironwood, Oobleck, Port, Theodore and Lionheart to command her forces. But Ironwood's lieutenant Watts sees that her grief has made her reckless and destructive and worries she’ll wipe out their food source, so he secretly pledges loyalty to Cinder, a rival vampire noble in Styria who has her sights set on Ozma’s throne. Watts sews uncertainty among the other generals that a human can be trusted to rule over vampires, and he recruits Lionheart, Hazel and Adam to their side to turn against Salem and betray her at Braila where Cinder ambushes Salem’s forces with her own. In the midst of the battle, Roman and Ozpin pull the castle away and land it at the Branwen hold.
> 
> The trio storm the castle, and upon seeing that Ozpin lives and that he and his entourage are more than capable of defeating their troops, all of the generals (save Lionheart, who was left behind with Watts and co. at Braila) bow to Ozpin and let the three of them through to Salem. Ozma’s generals only wished to loyally defend his legacy after all, and Ozpin is more his father’s son now than they’ve ever seen him—and he has stayed true to his father’s wishes where Salem has not.
> 
> Salem, enraged by all of the betrayal, fights tooth and nail against the main trio, but like in the show, it comes down to her and Ozpin in the end. And she realizes that while she could kill him and win, she would be destroying the last of her and Ozma’s legacy, the last of her family, the last of her love. So she surrenders to him and lets him kiss her one last time before he rips her throat out with his teeth.
> 
> Obviously Ozpin is very upset afterward and requires a lot of comfort from his human consorts—er, friends. But he eventually steps up and takes command of the castle and his father’s generals, declaring that he will be the defender of the collective knowledge of the Branwens and the vampires, and that he (with a little help from his friends) will train a new generation of monster hunters not beholden to the Church, in the process fostering better relations between humans and vampires, who can exist in harmony as he, Qrow and Roman have proven once more after Ozma and Salem's reign. Thus, Castle Academy is founded, and the former generals become professors, teaching students from all across of the globe how to defend themselves and each other from the dark forces of the world. Roman even summons the rest of his sect of apostate Speaker-Magicians, led by none other than his vitriomancer sister Neo in his absence, to help defend the academy against all the threats that remain—the Church, Cinder and her court (where Watts, a reluctant Lionheart, Adam & Hazel have joined Emerald, Mercury & Tyrian on her war council), and the true monsters still lurking in the dark.


End file.
